Andrea Bocelli returned to Prague and thrilled listeners of all genres and generations
“Hooray, opera!” This can finally be said by all those who have so far only watched the slowly awakening culture, but themselves still had to wait for their favorite music genre and its dominant representative. However, the Italian singer likes the Czech audience, and even though he didn’t say much, we all understood him.
Live: Andrea Bocelli
place: O2 arena, Prague
date: May 18, 2022
Photo gallery
© Tomas Parkan / musicserver.cz
Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli travels to Prague regularly, but like many others, he has had a longer break in the last two years due to a pandemic. In addition to the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Marcello Roty, a number of guests also joined the stage. Among them, for example, the Cuban soprano Maria Aleida, who repeated herself throughout the performance. Or baritone Gianfranco Montesor, who performed, among other things, “Votre toast” from “Carmen”, Tuscan singer Ilaria Della Bidia, or showed another version of Luis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World”, cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson. She didn’t even need a bow for her special performance of “Roxanne” by The Police. She picked up and heard all the sounds with her fingers, and it sounded fresh, exotic, and most importantly, pleasant. And to top it all off, a dance duo peeked out at the stage here and there to make the song likeable.
© Tomas Parkan / musicserver.cz
It might seem that despite so many guests, Bocelli himself (despite the great performance of “La Donna É Mobile”, which the younger generation may know from the Pizza Ristorante ad rather than the fact that it is from Verdi) stands a bit apart. But only until you realize that the guests there have not only to make the whole event diluted and it wasn’t just about his own voice, which, by the way, is still extraordinary and admirably strong, but so that he can excel at younger talents than he is at sixty-three, and everywhere he can stay strong for the mainstream audience even when he himself will lack strength. Judging by his live performance and shots at the projections, he still has enough. All the shots of his family, Italy, the landing of the troops, the shots of the theaters and the like were a pretty backdrop in themselves. But when the singer launched the classic “Amazing Grace” from his last series “Believe” from 2020 (since then he has released a Christmas album or favorite lovesongs, for example), it had enormous power. Not only because of his voice and the power of the musical experience as such, but also because of the accompanying shots showing his journey to Haiti, where he helped the local children forget poverty at least for a while and filled their hearts with joy. And that is the power. When a blind person who only needs assistance just to go up the stairs has so much love in him that he travels halfway around the world to help those who need that help even more. That already means something.
However, in order to fully appreciate his personality, it was not necessary to travel in thought to the other side of the globe. It was enough to watch intently as a shy smile appeared on his face with each applause, and to see in it how his shared moments filled them with happiness.
© Tomas Parkan / musicserver.cz
He didn’t even have to talk about the publication. And even though most of us didn’t understand what he was singing about in those Italian arias, we all understood him anyway. In the end, his biggest hit “Con Te Partirò” could not be missed, to this day probably the only song by an opera artist who has also played commercial radio in the last thirty years. And in the full finish, “Nessun Dorma” from the opera “Turandot” was heard. And it was such a brilliantly sung thing that you might not even know that Pavarotti is not on stage, but Bocelli. Someone then had to pull a handkerchief from his pocket on the way up the stairs to the east. What else to add? Who knows, knows.